The ACLU Capital Punishment Project recent­ly released ​“Three Decades Later: Why We Need A Temporary Halt on Executions,” a report that comes just over 30 years after the Supreme Court’s Furman v. Georgia deci­sion that placed a tem­po­rary halt on exe­cu­tions because the death penal­ty was being applied in an arbi­trary, dis­crim­i­na­to­ry, and capri­cious man­ner. While the Supreme Court upheld state cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment statutes writ­ten after Furman in its 1976 Gregg v. Georgia deci­sion, the report notes that ques­tions of fair­ness remain. In its report, the ACLU calls for a tem­po­rary halt to exe­cu­tions to give states the chance to review these con­cerns, includ­ing issues such as wrong­ful con­vic­tions, inad­e­quate rep­re­sen­ta­tion, geo­graph­ic dis­par­i­ty, and racial and socioe­co­nom­ic bias. Read the report.

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